End effectors are used in a wide variety of applications to manipulate articles. Such end effectors can be disposed at a distal end of a robotic arm, or can be incorporated into a manual or semi-manual actuated system, such as a chuck used to position a cutting tool during a sharpening operation.
By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,735,732, issued to Bernard and assigned to the assignee of the present application, generally discloses a drill bit sharpener that utilizes a chuck to hold a drill bit for sharpening. The chuck and bit are inserted by the user into an alignment port to set various geometries of the bit with respect to the chuck, such as depth and angular orientation (timing angle).
Once aligned, the chuck and bit are inserted by the user into a sharpening port wherein the bit is presented to a rotating grinding wheel to sharpen the cutting surfaces of the bit. As the chuck is rotated by the user, camming surfaces on the chuck control the depth and angle of the bit during the sharpening process. As desired, the chuck and bit can further be inserted into a split-point port in order to provide a split-point on the bit by removing material between the respective cutting surfaces on the drill bit tip.
While operable, there remains a continual need for improvements in the manner in which articles such as cutting tools are precisely manipulated, and it is to such improvements that the claimed invention is generally directed.